How do we select our finalists? We evaluate hundreds of candidates—some suggested by readers, colleagues and friends, others discovered during countless hours of surfing. Many of this year's choices are shining examples of Web 2.0: next-generation sites offering dynamic new ways to inform and entertain, sites with cutting-edge tools to create, consume, share or discuss all manners of media, from blog posts to video clips. Think we missed one? Send us your thoughts and we'll post a selection of your comments online. There's always next year.
Entertainment, Arts and Media
RADIO Pandora Type in the name of your favorite band, and within moments the site will be streaming a radio station, featuring songs from that band and others like it, to your desktop through your browser — no registration and no downloads required. You can "tune" the play list by using the thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons. A new Backstage section is a searchable directory of artists and albums — "your door to the music universe" — courtesy of the Music Genome Project.
VIDEO BLOG The 9 Each weekday morning, this vlog delivers some of the latest-greatest stuff that can be found online — video clips, movie trailers, online discussions, blog posts, news stories, quirky websites — as a five-minute streaming videocast starring the foxy (if unnaturally tan) host, Maria Sansone. The must-clicks, presented as a countdown and linked from the home page, range from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day to movie-poster spoofs in http://hoffgallery.com/index.php (an homage to David Hasselhoff) . Honorable mention goes to Rocketboom 2.0, a mix of Daily Show-esque reports, Web news and commentary on Internet culture. (We lament Amanda Congdon's recent departure as host, but new host Joanne Colan seems up to the task; check out her July 14 bit with the funny folks from Tiki Bar TV. ) For more silliness, head to Ask A Ninja . And be sure to stop by It's Jerry Time!, for hilarious, cleverly-animated "true-life" tales.
ART Drawn! This collaborative blog, geared to "anybody who likes to draw," is produced for artists by artists for the purpose of sharing links — mainly sites where you can view individual artists' works — and resources. There's a welcoming vibe, so even if you're not an aspiring Picasso or Pekar, you'll enjoy the illustrations, cartoons, animated video podcasts and other works highlighted here.
INDIE PICKS Sundance Splinks This collection of funky, artsy sites compiled by Sundance Festival staff includes Off the Map, a section of Pbs.org that lets you create your own "backyard paradise" — you select images and flash animations (grouped under Watchamacallits, Doohickies and Wigglies, among other categories) and drag them onto a virtual scene — and the fabulously droll Billy Harvey Music. Click Watch on the festival home page to find the Splinks list.
PHOTOGRAPHY Photo Muse A joint project by the International Center of Photography in New York City and the George Eastman House in Rochester (the world's oldest photography museum), PhotoMuse remains a work in progress. The site's current online database of images is just a fraction of the ultimate goal of 200,000 by the fall, but it's a fine start. Search by photographer — there are two dozen listed in the drop-down menu, including Weegee (109 works) and Gordon Parks (40) — or keyword. Not to miss: Alfred Eisenstaedt's 1963 shot of children at a puppet theater in the Tuileries, Paris.
HOME MOVIES Jumpcut It's an all too common tale: you're capturing fantastic footage at the family barbecue, but by the time you edit it down to a watchable 3-minute clip, your audience has all gone home. You could burn multiple DVDs and drop them in the mail — or you could save yourself the trouble and just upload your masterpiece to Jumpcut.com, add music and visual effects using the site's own editing tools, and then email everybody the link. Give your friends access to your stuff and they can remix it or blend it with their own footage of the same event (What's a little video mashing among friends?). The site recently added original trailer footage from the movie Revenge of the Nerds for users to play with, and promises more licensed material in the months to come. (Users are asked not to upload anything that would be in violation of copyright law.) For straight-up sharing, try ClipShack, which will store up to 50 megabytes worth of media files for you, for free, including stills; video files must be 20 MB or smaller, and in one of the supported formats (.avi, .wmv, .mp2 and others are accepted). Clipshack will also take clips emailed from your cell phone. Think your video warrants wider attention? Post it on YouTube (see below) or Eefoof, a lesser-known site that shares its ad revenue with its contributors (your take depends on how many unique visitors view your work). If you'd rather send your video directly via email, go to Pando. There you can download a neat little peer-to-peer file-transfer application that will make the job faster and easier, essentially by moving it from one computer to another, using Pando's server as a way station (and as a backup; content that you send via Pando remains on the company's server for 14 days). Pando allows you to package up to 1 gigabyte worth of stuff — videos, photos, power-point presentations — at a time.
LONG LIVE ROCK Wolfgang's Vault Click "Vault Radio" to stream recordings of live performances of all your favorite rockers from the 1960s and '70s: The Doors, The Stones, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Marley, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and lots more. Vault Radio plays selected tracks from these concerts in an FM-quality, 128K digital radio stream. Click "In Rotation" to see what's included in the current stream; it's always changing. (We were lucky enough to catch the Allman Brothers Band's March 12, 1971 performance of "Whipping Post" at the Fillmore East.) The site also sells vintage posters, photographs, T-shirts and all manner of memorabilia.
PODCASTS Podcast Pickle The sheer quantity of podcasts and videocasts now available make the existence of sites like Podcast Pickle a necessity — how else would you keep up? Last we checked, the directory boasted nearly 10,000 casts. Use the advanced search tools or browse the Top 100 list or weekly picks to find something worth loading onto your own portable player, or add your own cast to the mix. The site automatically downloads new feeds as they are posted by the source; register to create a personal page of favorites, and you'll be able to access everything you want in one place. Recently launched by the same outfit: Sportpodcast.com and Churchpodcasts.com; other genre-specific sites, including SciFicaster.com and WallSteetpod.com, are coming soon. CLick here for TIME's podcast picks.
VIDEO WORLD YouTube By far the most popular video-sharing site on the Web, YouTube catapulted into public consciousness after the posting of a certain cupcake-fueled Saturday Night Live spoof. Although "Lazy Sunday," was eventually removed from the site after NBC complained — the network now posts teaser clips from hit shows like The Office — YouTube's numbers kept growing: by July, less than a year after its public launch, traffic was up to 65,000 new video uploads and 100 million video viewings per day. Relive treasures such as Journey's "Separate Ways", observe a Great White grabbing lunch or see what folks with too much free time can do with a digicam and a dream. Often, video quality isn't great, and a lot of the stuff is junk, yet somehow we can't stop digging around in it. Neither can network execs, apparently: a comedy pilot called "Nobody's Watching," written two years ago for the WB but only recently posted on YouTube, was just bought by, yup, NBC.
Shopping, Lifestyles and Hobbies
SWAP MEET Zunafish Sign up here to trade DVDs, CDs, paperbacks, videogames and more. The only money that changes hands is the $1 fee you pay the site for each successful trade. Choose a screen name and you're ready to swap; it's easy to post the items you want to trade; you simply plug in identifying information, like a UPC code on the back of a CD — the site walks you through this — and the site produces the full listing. You can search for items you'd like to have, and send messages to the owner, indicating your interest. Trade offers pop up as "zunalert" messages on your personal Zunafish home page. Since the site launched in January, "thousands" of trades have been consummated, according to a spokesperson. (We received an offer for our own remaster of The Who's Live at Leeds within just a few hours of posting it — but what to select in exchange? Best of Bad Company? The Immaculate Collection...?) SwapSimple, based in Chicago, works a similar angle, but while Zunafish requires like-item trades only (a book for a book, a DVD for DVD, etc.), SwapSimple allows you to mix and match media. It's particularly popular among college students, who use it to trade expensive textbooks.
COOKING Delicious Days This is a blog about food, written by foodies — namely, German couple Nicole Stich and Oliver Seidel of Munich. The design is elegant and there are loads of gorgeous images of, well, food, but also folks preparing food, fresh food at the market and exotic ingredients. Recipe-related posts are archived three ways: there's sweet, savory and "everyday," and travelogues from Lisbon and other locales include tips on where to eat out. Recent posts include a piece on edible flowers, with a recipe for an elderflower cordial. Another great resource for cooks: Elise Bauer's blog, Simply Recipes .
STUFF TO BUY Mighty Goods Here blogger Margaret Mason of San Francisco cheerfully identifies cool things to buy and provides links to the websites that sell them — like the sheep mobile from Sparkability.net and the Hammerhead shark wallpaper-by-numbers from 2Jane. Her prose is tight and upbeat — the tagline is, appropriately, "Hooray for stuff!" While ads do appear in the margins (hey, a blogger needs to make a living too, or at least cover her expenses) Mason does not accept paid placements or postings (though she gets a share of some click-throughs — items sold at Amazon.com items for example — but this arrangement affects only a small percentage of posts, and, Mason says, does not influence her writing). Best feature: the grid-view option, which displays just the photo images from posts in a particular category, for quicker scanning. For more cool stuff to buy, check out Uncrate, a shopping blog for guys, and its sister blog, Outblush. Worried about the environment? TreeHugger blogs for consumers like you.
CRAFTS Not Martha There are loads of crafts-oriented blogs, so it was difficult to recommend just one, but here goes: Not Martha is written by Megan Reardon, who lives in Seattle with Scott and a clover plant ("which I might have killed last week"). The entries are frank and funny, with titles such as "adventures in making lip balm," "funny hat" and "hostess snack cake sushi." This Megan is a problem solver, creative yet practical, and considerate: she details mistakes she's made along the way so you can avoid making the same. Lately she's been writing about her various efforts to fix up a new house. For more chatter about the wide world of knitting and other pursuits, try Craftster, a community forum with an edge. Do-it-yourselfers will appreciate Instructables, with its step-by-step instructions for making things you never knew you wanted, such as a pinball coffee table, a light tent, a giant steel skeleton hand/coat rack and a wobble bike. For more techie DIY projects, go to MAKE magazine. And the collaborative How-To manual at wikiHow offers solutions to everyday problems, from How to Cut Open a Coconut to How to Call In Sick to Work.
PARENTING Kids-In-Mind Before you let your child watch X-Men: The Last Stand, The Shaggy Dog or any other movie — not just those openly marketed to youngsters — read about it here first. Scorecards for each flick indicate levels of sex and nudity, violence and gore, and profanity. The detailed write-ups are not reviews, but rather in-depth accounts of a film's content — non-judgmental, they simply tell it like it is. To wit: an excerpt from "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties," reads, "A bird is sucked up into an exhaust flue, a cat hits a dog with a turkey leg, a cat kicks a dog off a sofa, and a parrot is hit with a pillow and falls off a sofa." (The movie got a 2 out of 10 for violence and gore.) There are also handy links to the "critical consensus" provided by other sites such as Rotten Tomatoes (see 25 Sites We Can't Live Without).
CELL PHONES Phone Scoop Shopping for a new cell phone, but confused by all the different service plans and handsets? Or maybe you just want to get more out of your mobile — a better ring tone, perhaps, or music videos made for the tiny screen, and don't know how to get started. Whether you're a novice or enthusiast, let this site be your guide. The Phone Finder page lets you compare handsets by carrier, availability, style, weight, battery life and other distinguishing characteristics. Market and industry news is also covered, and there are forums, a blog and a glossary of terms. For more in-depth information about the different wireless carriers, visit LetsTalk.com .
FASHION Shop Intuition Created as a "general store for fashionistas" by shopper-for-the-stars Jaye Hersh, Shop Intuition serves as part celebrity style-watch, part upscale boutique, intent on carrying the must-have items of the moment. Categories range from Handbags & Totes to Tops & Tunics. There's even a separate "Target Couture" page. Another e-tailer for fashion-forward types, and evidence that there is a way to sell high-end labels online: Net-a-Porter.com, where items range from a Vera Wang spaghetti strap dress in black lace ($805) to a Missoni babydoll top in purple silk satin ($1,288).
News and Information
TECHNOLOGY Digg At this "social news" site the users, rather than a computer algorithm, determine how important or interesting the stories are, and Digg posts them on the homepage accordingly. The articles are tagged with number of "diggs," or thumbs-up by readers. View the tag "cloud" to see which stories are gaining traction (the headline appears bigger). And don't miss the new Digg Labs page, offering two visual alternatives to displaying the same info: one is called Swarm , the other Stack. For a tight and jaunty summary of the week's best blog posts and news articles, visit the Rojo Blog. Want to go deeper? TechCrunch reports new website launches and covers emerging Web technologies with an eye on what actually might be ready for, and useful to, consumers.
PUBLIC COMPANIES Footnoted Here Michelle Leder, a business journalist since the late 80s, consumes public filings and other corporate statements then spits back the meatiest, tastiest bits for finance types to feast on. Written for a knowledgeable audience (the kind that knows "SOX" is short for the Sarbanes-Oxley, not a baseball team), it manages a conversational tone while serving up the good stuff.
DON'T CALL IT A 'ZINE The Morning News This online magazine is published weekdays, offering links to Headline News stories (some serious, some strange) along with humor pieces, social commentary and other features by its own contributors. It's based in New York City, so it has a Gotham sensibility (see "The Brooklyn Pigeon Wars"). Don't miss the "Spoofs and Satire" page.
PHILANTHROPY Charity Navigator Looking to give away some money? This site has independently evaluated the financial health of some 5,000 charities. Search the database by cause (environment, education, arts, etc.) or keyword. Latest special report assesses agencies that responded to Hurricane Katrina.
SPORTS Deadspin This hip new sports blog — hatched out of Nick Denton's shop, which also brought Lifehacker, Gizmodo and Gawker, 50-Coolest finalists from years past — and edited by Will Leitch, is "sports news without access, favor or discretion." In other words: posts are funny, irreverent, occasionally raunchy, and a departure from the usual national sports-commentator fare. Browse posts by category (College Basketball, NFL, NHL, Gay Athletes, Steroids) or search by keyword.
FIELD REPORTING Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone Veteran war correspondent Kevin Sites, known for his deft use of digital newsgathering techniques and compelling narrative style, continues his work covering conflicts in all parts of the globe. Upon moving over to Yahoo in September 2005, (his site is part of Yahoo News), he embarked on a yearlong mission: to cover every armed conflict in the world in 12 months. From the home "Reporting From" page, click Past Locations for links to his multimedia reports from 17 other troubled regions, from Cambodia to Kashmir; scroll to the bottom of that page for a link to his groundbreaking coverage in Iraq in 2004. For a different perspective, read Baghdad Burning, one Iraqi woman's wartime diary, or Healing Iraq, by Baghdad dentist/blogger Zeyad A. And Lisa Goldman's blog, On the Face provides insight into the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. U.S. soldiers are also active in the blogosphere; click here for Time's list of the best ones or visit MILblogging.com, a searchable index of more than 1,400 military blogs in 27 countries.
TELLING TIME The Human Clock Click here to see what time it is. With each passing minute, you get a new image — ranging from shots of a person (or group of people) holding up a sign ("4:17") to inanimate objects arranged or labeled to convey the relevant information (license plates, household address shingles). You can keep things going in a smaller window on your desktop by clicking "gimme a cute window." Visitors are strongly encouraged to submit a photo — provided they follow the do's and don'ts, as in, please don't submit pictures of license plates, they have too many already.
POLITICS Tailrank Tailrank culls the day's top stories from thousands of blogs (both liberal and conservative) and news sites; the posts that are linked to the most and discussed the most bubble to the top. (Technology and General News are covered under separate tabs.) Registered users can create their own customized filter; there's a mobile version too and an RSS feed.
Staying Connected
PARTY ON THE FLY Dodgeball Let your mobile device improve your social life. Use this service to corral friends for a drink, or to find out where they're already hanging — all you do is text-message the mother ship, and she does the rest (the service locates you, checks which of your buds are nearby, and sends out the appropriate alerts). And the Dodgeball team keeps growing: now at play in 22 cities.
GLOBAL SOCIETY MySpace It's the place where Web stars are born, music and film careers are launched and some single people manage to find mates. This exploding social-networking site is now the most popular website in the U.S., boasting some 100 million registered members. In the last year, traffic jumped from 17 million unique visitors per month to 54 million — more than Yahoo gets some weeks. As a member (it's free) you can post all sorts of content — blogs, photos, videos, MP3s — to your profile page; get a few hundred thousand other "friends" to link to it and Bam! you're on the pop-culture map. Marketers may even come calling, hoping to piggyback on the exposure. MySpace's wild popularity has inspired a slew of startups to create features and applications specifically for MySpacers — like Rojo Networks' "Nooz" ticker, which links to the day's top stories, based on how many other members are reading them. In July Web humorist Ze Frank hosted an ugliest MySpace page contest; David Lehre's parody, "MySpace, The Movie," is a YouTube favorite. There's even a mobile phone — the Helio Hero — offering one-button access to MySpace so you can view pages and respond to friends on the go. Think MySpace is too "young" for you? New social network Eons is targeting the 50-plus crowd.
INSTANT MESSAGING Meebo In geekspeak, it's an IM unifier. In plain English, it's a one-stop shop for all your instant-messaging needs. Which is to say that Meebo puts all your IM clients — the individual programs that make instant-messaging services incompatible with one another — into one browser window. There's no need to download all the different apps (MSN, AOL/ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber/Gtalk) to your computer to have any and all types of IM conversations. Available in four dozen languages.
KARAOKE CLUB SingShot Your friends and family mock, but you don't care: you love karaoke. SingShot makes it easy to find fellow crooners, and share each other's best work — call it YouTube for karaoke. Subscribe to the site (it costs $9.95 per month, or $4.95 per month for an annual subscription) and you can upload your home recordings for others to enjoy; members vote for their favorites. You just need reasonably good PC speakers and a microphone connected to the right jack in the back of your computer; the site streams the lyrics in a video window while the song plays. There's a wide selection — everything from the Beatles to Michelle Branch — and the original recording is your accompaniment (no Muzak here). Fox Interactive's kSolo.com works pretty much the same way, and it's been around longer, so it has more users and a larger library of tunes — but while SingShot is compatible with all browsers, kSolo only works in Internet Explorer.
GROUP PROJECTS Google Spreadsheets As the name suggests, this free Web-based application, one of the latest to come out of Google's shop, will help you organize information into a tidy chart, tabs and all. But the best part about the elegant interface is that it encourages collaboration. That is, it allows multiple users, logged in from different computers, to update the same spreadsheet simultaneously while text-chatting in a separate window. (The chart is stored on a Google server, rather than locally on a PC's hard drive.) You can invite others to edit or view your spreadsheet with a quick email without leaving the page. Google, having recently purchased Writely.com is expected to introduce a similar free tool for writers who wish to collaborate in real time.
Time Wasters
PUZZLES Number Logic Caught up in the current Sudoku craze? This site offers a hefty supply of puzzles to tackle. Work independently or compete head-to-head against other registered users. There are three levels of difficulty; the site will time you (there's a pause button if you need to take a breather) and, if you wish, "validate" your answers (and highlight any mistakes). You don't have to sign in to use the site — but you do if you want your scores recorded.
CELEBRITY GOSSIP TMZ Kudos to these newshounds who broke the Mel Gibson story. TMZ is the place to go when you need a shot of entertainment and celebrity news; its "gotcha" style reminds us of The Smoking Gun. Scroll down to the bottom of the home page for links to the latest posts on some of the other "hot blogs" in the celeb category, including "L.A. gossip rag" Defamer and the more media-centric, Manhattan-based Gawker. Got more time to kill? Pink Is the New Blog dishes with flare. (Full disclosure: TMZ.com is part of AOL, which is owned by the same company that owns Time.com.)
MOOD LIFTER Cute Overload Because sometimes you just need to look at pictures of kittens. Or farm animals. Or hedgehogs. This popular blog provides a daily dose of cute imagery, found somewhere on the Internet or emailed in by a fan. Browse categories ("Pocket Pets," "Cats N Racks") or follow the site's links to more cuteness at sites like Baby Animalz.com and Pandafix .
PAINTING Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas Here's a place where you can indulge your inner abstract expressionist: move your mouse to splatter virtual paint and click to change the color. To create a hard copy, right-click on the "canvas" and select Print.
FREE GAMES Shockwave You'll find a variety of ways to procrastinate here — there are games you can play by yourself, and multiplayer games; flash games you play inside your browser, and games you download. You can browse by category or search by keyword (check out Loop, under Adventure). If you don't already have the latest Shockwave Player installed on your computer, you'll be prompted to download it.
MONSTER MASH Yu-Gi-Oh Groove Here's one for the kids: a site that features characters from the popular anime world of Yu-Gi-Oh, doing something they don't ordinarily do: dance. It's silly and fun — you mix and match the music and moves. Developer Timothy Harris photographed the actual toys in various poses to create the stop-motion animations. Best feature: though sponsored by Mattel, there's not an ad or corporate logo in sight.
Travel and Real Estate
WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO Yelp Read what "real people" are saying about restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, etc. in New York, Seattle, Phoenix and 21 other cities, or submit written reviews of your own. The site combines strong local search tools (such as Google Maps) with a social networking approach — already the site is teeming with "Yelpers" eager to share — and so the more user-generated content it compiles, the more useful it will be for anybody who's looking for a good time in one of these towns.
CAR SHARING Zipcar Home of a well-conceived, well-executed service for urban dwellers who need a set of wheels every now and then but prefer not to own one. The website makes it very easy to reserve a car, look at recent charges to your account, learn what's covered under the usage fees, and learn all that is expected of you as a member of this rapidly-expanding club. Now serving eight cities including New York, San Francisco, Providence, RI, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Toronto. Ready to go on a road trip? Check gas prices by zip code on the MSN Autos page.
FLIGHT PLANS Kayak A slew of new features makes this a compelling meta-search site useful for planning your next trip. You can search airfares to different cities simultaneously (click "multi-city search"); Fare Watch lets you track any number of trip itineraries and receive email alerts when a fare meets or beats your specified price. Kayak Buzz lists the best fares to 25 popular destinations from a specific airport, and now you can also view the "best fare history" — the 100 best prices found by other users searching the same route during the last 36 hours. The new Flexible Search lets you compare fares on alternative travel dates. Registered users can save preferences under My Profile, so they don't have to enter certain data on every visit. Of course, it pays to check an airline's FlightStats before booking — the site issues monthly reports showing how well carriers managed to stick to schedule. And once you've decided on a flight, head to Seat Guru for a detailed look at your seat-assignment options.
HOME APPRAISALS Zillow This site uses tax records, sales history and actual amounts paid for comparable properties in your area to calculate an estimate ("Zestimate") of your home's worth. You don't have to identify yourself or deal with a broker to use the service. Check out the new color-coded "heat maps" of 17 cities that compare Zestimates per square foot by location. When you're ready to buy, consult the Mortgage Professor's Web Site, a site packed with useful advice from expert Jack M. Guttentag, a retired finance professor from Wharton who assesses lenders and offers tutorials, calculators and a glossary, while warning borrowers about the hazards of the current market.
PARKS Central Park This comprehensive, interactive guide to one of the world's most famous public spaces offers up-to-date information on 43 different attractions, from the Carousel to the Conservatory Garden, Strawberry Fields to the Swedish Cottage. A model of organization and design, it's a pleasure to navigate.
FARE MARKET Farecast This brand-new "airfare predication engine" calculates whether the lowest price on plane tickets — currently, only for trips out of Seattle or Boston — will rise or fall over the next week, to help you decide the right time to buy. (All major U.S. markets will be covered by the end of the year, according to a site spokesperson.) Choose from 120 destinations, and you'll get a fare history chart, price prediction and bottom-line tip (e.g., "Wait"). The site aggregates piles of airfare data to track price fluctuations and deliver its advice; it also reveals differences in fares according to time of day and other factors.
MASS TRANSIT HopStop This incredibly useful site provides step-by-step directions via bus or subway in four cities: New York, Boston, Washington and San Francisco. Plug in start and end points and you get clear instructions, alternative options and maps. The site factors in service changes and provides alternative routes.
Web Search and Services
GENERAL INTEREST Snap This new Google-competitor records and analyzes past searches to help determine relevancy, favoring sites where surfers visited most frequently and lingered the longest. Search results are displayed on the left side of the page, while the other side provides a visual preview (which you can choose to view in small, medium or large). Ask.com offers previews too — courtesy of a little binoculars icon placed next to certain links — and boasts a new Blogs & Feeds search tool too.
TAKE-OUT Seamless Web Working overtime? Order dinner for yourself and your officemates using this smart service, which counts 1,000 participating restaurants in New York City. The service has assembled similar-sized armies in nine other cities, including San Francisco, Houston and Stamford, Conn. The consumer side of the business - home delivery — is just getting started; for now, it's only available in Manhattan in New York City, but there are plans to roll it out elsewhere by year end. The ordering process is straightforward and thorough; menu selections allow you to be as specific as to request dressing on the side. You can submit special delivery instructions too, and put the tip on your credit card. Another helpful resource for New Yorkers: Menu Pages, a searchable database of restaurants that also lists them by cuisine and by neighborhood, posts reviews and ratings and provides menus formatted to print.
BUSINESS Accoona This engine uses artificial intelligence to "understand" the meaning of the keywords in your query in an effort to deliver more relevant results. Drop-down menus allow you to set some search parameters, such as business type and location; run a News search for recent articles, Business search for facts and figures, or a Web search for relevant links. PubSub is also useful; it lets you "subscribe" to a particular search, after which the engine will continue to retrieve new information related to your search as it appears on blogs, in newsgroup discussions or in SEC filings, automatically refreshing your search results so they are ready (one click away from the home page) when you want them.
PICTURES AND VIDEO Pixsy This clever engine extracts images and videos from the RSS feeds of a variety of content providers, from YouTube to the BBC. Click on a source — say, The New York Times — from the "Browse Recently Added" box on the lower right-hand side of the home page, and you'll get a fresh batch of thumbnails, which serve as direct links to the material. Or browse by category to see the latest content to come online. Currently stocking some 10 million items in its searchable bank, Pixsy intends to have 1 billion items in store by year end. As a backup resource, there's always Google Images and Google Video.
PHONE NUMBERS Argali White & Yellow Download the free software offered here and you can search multiple telephone directories (Google's SuperPages, WhitePages.com and more than a dozen others) simultaneously. You can elect to pay for a premium version, which delivers results without ads.
HEALTH Kosmix This specialized search engine scours more than 3.2 billion general web pages and divides its results into subcategories — the Health engine, for example, groups links under treatment, prevention, symptoms, clinical trials and others headings — for more efficient info-gathering. It's also built to deliver more relevant links, by pulling from the part of its index that makes the most sense (it doesn't bother with travel sites if the keyword is diabetes, for example). The specialized health search engine is the farthest along — it graduated from the alpha test phase to beta in February — but Kosmix has been busy adding new subject areas, including Finance, Travel and U.S. politics, and, most recently, video games.
SELF-PUBLISHING Blurb Soon those old-fogy relatives of yours who still don't have Internet access (or even a computer) will be able to experience the brilliance of your blog without compromising their Luddite principals. Blurb's "slurper" tool uploads the contents of your blog (up to 400 8x10 printed pages worth) and reformats it into book form. You choose the design layout and other particulars; the company ships you the finished product (full color, hardcover, bound, with custom dust jacket for $29.95 to $79.95 depending on number of pages) then makes your book available on the site for others to buy. For now, the site's BookSmart software already can be used to make other types of books (cookbooks, baby books, poetry books) while the blog-to-book program, temporarily unavailable while 200 selected bloggers test it, makes it public debut in September. We're talking books you can page through and place on coffee tables. How retro.
WEB DEFENSE McAfee SiteAdvisor Here you'll find a free downloadable application that, once installed inside your own Web browser (it works with FireFox and Internet Explorer), aims to keep you out of trouble — or, to be precise, stop you from clicking through to websites where spyware, worms, and other cyber threats lurk. The program attaches tiny color-coded icons to links that appear on a list of search returns — a green check means it's safe to proceed, a red X means it's not; a yellow icon indicates nuisances such as spam or pop-ups. Why would you need this? Because simply clicking through to a suspect site can wreak havoc on a PC, and risky sites comprise a growing portion of search returns. If you want a service that will flag for inappropriate content such as porn, try Scandoo.
